The first thing that struck me about farming in Australia is the sheer scale they’re operating on – it is absolutely vast. We arrived at a family farm in Parkes, NSW, who are at the cutting edge of canola (the Australian term for oilseed rape) farming. The farm identified that cutting costs was crucial to protect their farms margin so they designed the biggest precision drill I have ever seen in my life. The simple innovation saved them thousands on seed costs with little significant yield reduction.
Next stop was the Forbes livestock market and with a £30m investment from the council it was quite a place. On average, they sell 120,000 cattle and 1.2m sheep per year. A typical sale day sees 36,000 lambs and 3,000 cattle pass through the ring. However, local demand isn’t satisfied and the market is looking to expand grow even further.
The next day we visited the canola crush MSM Milling in Orange, NSW, which was started by two brothers. In the early 1990s, the MacSmith brothers realised they could add value to their production by setting up a small canola crush on their farm, rather than being at the whim of volatile commodity markets.
Their business grew and in 25 years they have gone from crushing 300 tonnes of their own produce a year to crushing 350 tonnes a day. All the canola is Australian and they try to source directly from farmers within 250km of the farm.
Although canola oil is the main product, 40% of the their business is now contributed by canola meal and they are producing around 25 different varieties of animal feed, many of which are exported to dairy farmers in New Zealand.
As well as being sold in bulk, their oil is also packaged smaller destined for the Asian customer. They’ve even recently started a retail line aimed at supermarket shelves. It’s a truly integrated business and they are constantly innovating to ensure nothing is wasted.
But they’re still farmers at heart, and on the farm they’re trialling grazing canola. The blistering hot Australian summers and mild winters mean that the normal crop is a spring variety but the family are now trialling winter canola, similar to the varieties at home in the UK.
They plant early, allowing sheep to graze before flowering, and the canola continues to grow which the sheep eat. Provided the sheep are removed at the right time the crop will recover and flower, yielding similar results.
For mixed farmers out here, having enough food during the hot dry summers for their animals can be a real challenge but this technique allows them to save their pastures for when they are needed most.
It was only two days but it showed what farming is like in such a vast country. When you realise they are doing all of this with very little farm support you release that if we want to compete on a level playing field we are going to have to get fit quick.